Allison Williams will play Peter Pan

Seriously. Yesterday there was an announcement about Allison Williams playing Peter Pan in NBC’s live staging of the musical (you remember ‘The Sound of Music’ last year, right?) and immediately there was a massive storm on Twitter and the mainstream media was picking it up and the more I looked, the more my early suspicions were confirmed – it was about nothing.

Seriously. What is this firestorm about, exactly? You don’t know, do you?

Allison Williams will play Peter Pan on the NBC broadcast. Okay, first objection – her father works for NBC. Well, okay, yeah, he has for years. She hasn’t been on NBC before now. So yeah, it’s totally nepotism, when a person who already has an acclaimed job on a separate network eventually gets a job elsewhere, at one of the largest broadcasters! The outrage! And her father announced the news! This one I can give a nod to being a little cringeworthy, but are you kidding me? What proud dad is going to be like “No, I don’t think I’m going to say that”? None, right? Exactly. Famous people also still have parents, guys.

Then of course there’s the “but but but she suuuuucks!”

She…doesn’t suck, actually. She has a really perfectly serviceable singing voice, and it’s controlled and sweet. Okay, she sounds more like a Disney princess than a Broadway belter, but um, there’s kind of a low bar there what with Carrie Underwood last year. And there’s a bunch of people whose prevailing memories of Peter Pan are of the Disney version anyway. And – and here’s where the Broadway nerds are going to come screaming with hot knives – it doesn’t always have to be exactly the same type of voice as the person who originated the role. I know. Stones flying.

“No, but like, Marnie is SO annoying. She’s the worst!”

Okay first of all, are we not past this? Marnie does not equal Allison. Marnie is supposed to be annoying, as that is conveniently the whole point of the character. If she annoys the hell out of you, it means she’s doing her job as an actress. Shows filled with cool people you like are pointless. You’re supposed to be upset with Marnie and Max Braverman and Bonnie on TVD and so forth. That’s the point.

But even if you don’t buy that rhetoric and you’re all “no, it’s the actress, it’s her performance, she’s so into herself, I can’t deal” then consider that Peter Pan, himself, is narcissistic in the extreme and that it might actually be a benefit to have someone, um, equally in touch with those emotions?

Seriously, there is zero problem here. There is nothing to complain about. If she started doing a yearlong run on Broadway, maybe we could talk? But come on. There are entire worlds of things you could be annoyed with. Choose one of those.

Besides, everyone’s going to be looking at Christopher Walken as Captain Hook anyway.